Detailed Sample Task: EAL Literacy

CLB 2L - Reading
Interacting with Others

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Real-World Task

Read a short message from a friend wishing you well on their cultural holiday.

Planning Context

Helpful Knowledge:

Basic greetings
Capital and lowercase letters
Some phonics knowledge of single sounds
Some sight words

Context:

There are people from many different cultures living in Canada.
Many people in Canada have friends
from different cultures.
It is common to greet someone on
a cultural holiday.

Vocabulary and Grammar

Sample Vocabulary:

months of the year
specific cultural holidays, e.g.: Thanksgiving, Eid, Diwali, Yom Kippur, Christmas, Easter, and so on
greeting
holiday
celebrate
food
tradition
clothes
happy

Sample Grammar:

Capital letters for proper nouns: names, holiday names

Knowledge and Strategies

Textual and Functional Knowledge:

Messages usually begin with a greeting and end with a signature.

Sociolinguistic Knowledge:

Learning about someone’s culture or holidays is a good way to get to know them.
Sharing about your own cultural holidays is a good way to teach your classmates about your culture.

Activities and Tasks

Sample Skill-Building Activities:

Sing the 12 Months of the Year Song.
Copy the months of the year. Start each month with a capital letter.
Work with a partner. Ask questions with when: When is your birthday? When did you come to Canada? When did you start school? Your partner will answer with the correct month. Answer your partner’s questions, and then share your partner’s information with the class.
Create a large “calendar” with a piece of chart paper for each month of the year. If possible, have learners write the name of the month at the top of the chart paper. Have learners organize the papers on the board or along a wall in order. This may take some time.
Elicit from learners the holidays they celebrate in their cultures. Work together with learners to identify when these holidays happen, and write each holiday in the correct month.
Work with a partner from a different culture. Teach your partner one holiday you celebrate and teach them a greeting for that holiday in your language. Learn about their holiday and their greeting. Work with your classmates to teach your instructor a holiday and a greeting each!
Practice saying Happy ________ with different cultural holidays. Teach learners that happy ________ works as a greeting for all holidays in Canada except Christmas: Merry Christmas.
Use TPR (Total Physical Response) to teach the task vocabulary. Call out a word and have learners respond with an appropriate action or indicate an appropriate picture.
Use word and picture cards to practice the vocabulary. Play games such as matching, Go Fish, and Bingo.
Incorporate phonics activities based on vocabulary words and other vocabulary related to the topic.
Choral write (guide learners and elicit the language from them) a message to a friend using an upcoming cultural holiday,
e.g. “Hi Samar! Happy Eid!”
Practice reading this greeting with
a classmate.
Copy words to complete a greeting
to a classmate.

Sample Skill-Using Tasks:

Read a greeting from a friend for a familiar holiday. Demonstrate understanding by reading the greeting aloud to the instructor.

Sample Assessment Tasks:

Read a short message from a friend wishing you well on their familiar cultural holiday. Demonstrate understanding by answering
a few oral questions from the instructor.

Teaching Considerations

Cultural Considerations:

Canada is a multicultural country, and there are people in Canada from every country in the world. Help learners understand that there are people from all cultures living in Canada.

Digital Literacy Strategies:

Successful completion of some tasks may require some baseline knowledge and digital skills.

Learners may need to:

Have keyboarding and typing skills.
Locate, navigate and use websites.
Read information from a screen.
Adjust volume on device.

Instructors can:

Dedicate time to improve digital literacy for learners.
Make and/or adapt digital materials.
Introduce websites that are relevant to the task(s).
Support learners in finding, navigating and using websites.

Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Indigenization Strategies:

Use diverse representations of people in all your learning resources and images, including people who are 2SLGBTQ+, Indigenous, Francophone and of other cultures, and people who have disabilities or who are neurodivergent. Consider this diversity as you choose names for characters in stories you create as well.
Include French greetings as examples, such as Joyeux Noël.
Include a wide variety of holidays in your examples. Do your best
to learn the name of a holiday for each learner in your class.

Trauma-informed Strategies:

Possible Trauma Triggers:

Learners who have experienced discrimination or persecution based on their culture, faith, or language, may be triggered by discussions of culture. If there is a learner who does not want to share about their own culture, you could suggest they use a secular Canadian holiday instead, such as Thanksgiving.
When teaching about Canada, you may teach about things that are triggering to learners who have experienced trauma. We can’t know what the triggers might be and what seems commonplace to us may have a triggering component for learners. Be aware of this and be prepared to support learners as needed.

Strategies:

Give learners advance warning of this topic and be aware that there may be learners who require support.
Learners who have experienced trauma often benefit from having routine. Create a safe and supportive classroom environment by establishing familiar routines, repeated activities, and model friendly and non-evaluative interactions.
Learners will benefit from positive relationships established in the classroom with the instructor and peers.
Learners who have experienced trauma benefit from having choices.
- Allow learners choice:
  - the choice to work on a different topic
  - the choice to share or not share their own experiences
  - the choice to work alone or to work with others
  - the choice to take care of themselves
  - the choice to step out of the learning environment
When learners have shared personal distressing or traumatic experiences, make space for learners to feel safe and recover from the experience of sharing their experiences. Follow the activities which may make learners feel vulnerable with routine, predictable and comforting activities.
Giving learners the knowledge, skills and language to access resources can be empowering.

Resources

Outings, Guest Speaker Suggestions, Extension Activities:

Read a simple story about Indigenous cultures in Canada, such as the Canadian Indigenous Content stories
Bring in a simple snack to share based on an upcoming holiday that is traditional in Canada
Work with classmates from the same culture to create a very short presentation on one of your cultural holidays

Realia:

Greeting cards
Decorations for different holidays
Videos of music celebrating different holidays

Units and Modules:

Tutela (CCLB): Greetings and Introductions: CLB 1L/2L
Tutela: Canadian Holidays: CLB 2 (Not literacy but can be adapted)

Lessons and Activities:

Tutela (Archway): Dates and Days: CLB 1L/2L
LINC 2 Classroom Activities Nice to Meet You (p. 3)
(Not literacy but can be adapted)
Tutela (Archway): Personal Information: Alphabetic Focus: CLB 1L/2L
Tutela: Norquest LINC Phonics Curriculum: CLB 2L
The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Reading Skills Stories
Tutela: Foundation L-CLB 2L Phonics Curriculum
A search of NLCG (nlcg.achev.ca) may provide additional tasks that can be adapted.

Multimedia:

The Literacy Centre of Expertise at TIES: Canadian Indigenous Content
Tutela: ESL Image Bank: Traditional Clothing